Good point, there are quite a few "mini" models out there that are low-ish power and would work well for this sort of application, and would likely have the horsepower left over to do other things that someone might find useful.

I haven't been watching the Linux+wifi space all that much lately, but what you outline still does sound much better than the situation even a decade ago. I get that it's slow, and I totally sympathize with and share your frustration there. I'm running 11ac gear at home, but I'll be due for a new laptop before too long, and would like to start the 11ax upgrade process. Seeing that I might have to forego OpenWRT (or just wait an uncertain amount of extra time) isn't really fun.